#thestaves

Weekly Playlist! 

10 Songs A Week!

and it’s happening again,

and you’re carrying me home

…

Lena Minder – Stay Around

It looks like we are going back to Berlin to look into one of many talented artists coming out of ‘The Famous Gold Watch Studios’.

Today I will be focusing on Lena Minder, a Swiss native, who like many before her made the move to Berlin to cultivate her talents. Earlier this year she released the song ‘Stay Around’ and I love it.

The song begins with the softness of a Spanish guitar, waltzing away at the chords rocking back and forth. Through the natural chord progression and descending bassline, we fall into the strange company of Lena’s distant voice. It’s beautiful, it’s pretty, and it feels as if her voice is coming from an old radio speaker in the corner of the room. The production aspect is really cool here, and it’s full of good musical choices when it comes to how Lena’s vocals are served. The effect of shrouding them is nice, but it also leaves you wanting more, and more is served swiftly as Lena is joined by her own angelic backing vocals, soaring like strings over the lead melody of the chorus.

In the second verse the misty texture of her voice is back, but this time she dubs the melody, adding another color to the canvas of her beautiful painting. When the second chorus comes to an end, the chord progression moves to a darker place, and the vocal arrangement is on full display. There’s two melody lines in the middle, one is high and light like a lead violin, the other is darker, playing nicely up against the lead melody like a cello would. Then you have additional choir panned to each side, rhythmically chiming in with this spicy tremolo effect. Again, the production level of the vocals cannot be understated.

Something really surprising happens towards the final third of the song. As we think we are firmly seated in Lena’s musical universe she pulls out a joker card from her back pocket. Cymbals, strumming guitar, and the magical light touches of acoustic piano are brought into the mix. It’s strange and surprising cause there was no build up to it at all. As suddenly as we were brought to this fairytale landscape, we are torn right out of it after about 25 seconds. It’s a risky move, but it works, and perhaps it was the journey she had to go on to bring back something of great value to her. For as we return there is new color on the canvas, namely the deep bass of a male voice.

Perhaps this is the person she was singing to all along, begging him to stay around in spite of the changing of time, or perhaps I’m reading way too much into it, and it was just for the sake of putting something nice in the mix towards the end.

In the end I’m left with a smile on my face, because I finally found some really high-quality folkish music, with spectacular female vocals and impeccable moments of harmony. For me it’s the best of its kind since The Staves, and that is saying a lot.